Selection of new guide camera

[dsand]

We prefer something with a slightly bigger field of view than the current guide camera.

Must have nearly the same form factor.

Anything else I'm missing?

[mplesser]

Features we want:

• liquid cooling to keep heat out of top box
• larger sensor size than current 6.6 mm per side (512x512 13.5 um pixels)
• USB3 or ethernet interface to eliminate PC at top box
• reasonably long exposure times (many CMOS cameras are limited to a few seconds)
• prefer CMOS over CCD as CCDs will be harder to support
• frame rate of at least 2 Hz (Bok does not respond quickly)
• Pixel size similar to current 13.5 um (perhaps with binning)
• approximately $10k to match budget
• sized to fit in place of current camera dewar

One possibility is pco.edge 4.2 bi - see this link
Drawback may be rolling shutter
13.3 mm sensor, 40 fps speed, 2x2 binning would give 13 um pixels, 0.2 e/pix/sec dark current @ -25C, 16-bit CMOS, 80x85x100 mm size, price ~ $14k

[dsand]

Just curious, why will CCDs be hard to support?

[mplesser]

Another major CCD foundry just closed in June (ON Semiconductor which bought the old Kodak CCD facility). So we are seeing few CCDs being manufactured and so commercial camera companies are moving away from them (to CMOS only). Ideally we want a product line which will be supported long term…